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Windows server 2012 essentials and support for Windows XP

Question

I have a question on Windows Server 2012 Essentials that as usual I seem can’t glean from the hype of Microsoft press releaseses

Windows server 2012 Essentials does support of Windows XP. System requirements state that Windows XP is not supported, or it is not listed as a supported OS. From what I have learnt XP clients can join the domain, so if it is a case of functionally, what
is missing for XP?

What this means is that while you can join Windows XP computers to the domain you can't:

Use the Connect script, and thus retain an existing user profile if you're going from a WorkGroup to a Domain - your domain users will get new profiles on the XP PCs and you'll need to manually migrate desktop, documents etc.

Manage the computers from the Windows 2012 Dashboard. You can still manage them through Active Directory.

Take backups of the XP computers from the server.

You'll also want to install the Group Policy Client Side Extenstions on the XP computer to get group policy to work correctly.

I've got an environment running with 2012 essentials and a mix of XP, Vista, 7 and 8 PCs and it all works fine once you're used to not seeing the computers listed in the Dashboard.

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